Feng Shuang-Tao, Mei Yun-Hui, Chen Gang, Li Xin, Lu Guo-Quan
Key Laboratory of Advanced Ceramics and Machining Technology of Ministry of Education, Tianjin University, 135# Yaguan Road, Jinnan District, Tianjin 300350, China.
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Advanced Joining Technology and School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China.
Materials (Basel). 2016 Jul 12;9(7):564. doi: 10.3390/ma9070564.
Sintering of nanosilver paste has been extensively studied as a lead-free die-attach solution for bonding semiconductor power chips, such as the power insulated gated bipolar transistor (IGBT). However, for the traditional method of bonding IGBT chips, an external pressure of a few MPa is reported necessary for the sintering time of ~1 h. In order to shorten the processing duration time, we developed a rapid way to sinter nanosilver paste for bonding IGBT chips in less than 5 min using pulsed current. In this way, we firstly dried as-printed paste at about 100 °C to get rid of many volatile solvents because they may result in defects or voids during the out-gassing from the paste. Then, the pre-dried paste was further heated by pulse current ranging from 1.2 kA to 2.4 kA for several seconds. The whole procedure was less than 3 min and did not require any gas protection. We could obtain robust sintered joint with shear strength of 30-35 MPa for bonding 1200-V, 25-A IGBT and superior thermal properties. Static and dynamic electrical performance of the as-bonded IGBT assemblies was also characterized to verify the feasibility of this rapid sintering method. The results indicate that the electrical performance is comparable or even partially better than that of commercial IGBT modules. The microstructure evolution of the rapid sintered joints was also studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). This work may benefit the wide usage of nanosilver paste for rapid bonding IGBT chips in the future.
纳米银膏烧结作为一种用于键合半导体功率芯片(如功率绝缘栅双极晶体管(IGBT))的无铅芯片附着解决方案,已得到广泛研究。然而,对于传统的IGBT芯片键合方法,据报道在烧结时间约1小时的情况下需要几兆帕的外部压力。为了缩短加工持续时间,我们开发了一种快速烧结纳米银膏的方法,使用脉冲电流在不到5分钟的时间内键合IGBT芯片。通过这种方式,我们首先在约100°C下干燥印刷好的银膏,以去除许多挥发性溶剂,因为它们在银膏排气过程中可能导致缺陷或空隙。然后,通过1.2 kA至2.4 kA的脉冲电流对预干燥的银膏进一步加热几秒钟。整个过程不到3分钟,且不需要任何气体保护。对于键合1200-V、25-A的IGBT,我们可以获得剪切强度为30-35 MPa的坚固烧结接头以及优异的热性能。还对键合后的IGBT组件的静态和动态电气性能进行了表征,以验证这种快速烧结方法的可行性。结果表明,电气性能与商用IGBT模块相当,甚至部分性能更优。还通过扫描电子显微镜(SEM)研究了快速烧结接头的微观结构演变。这项工作可能有助于未来纳米银膏在快速键合IGBT芯片方面的广泛应用。